Great

Armed with yesterdays purchased sugar fondant, spent a while trying to sort out the bees and also get them a bit better insulated for winter. The fondant which is simply 2.5kg blocks of solid but malleable sugar is placed directly on the top of the frames, still in its plastic bag but with the underside cut away to let the bees get at it. I still don't fully understand why it is easier for them to produce honey (and wax) from it rather than liquid sugar.

I would have liked to have done a full inspection and although the bees were active and flying, it felt much too cold to me to be disturbing them and letting out the warmth. Only after I had put the fondant in and wrapped them up nice and warm, did I see that the forecast for the coming week suggests we will be having temperatures in the mid-teens and above. That would be ideal but now with the fondant on, I suspect it will be impossible to lift out the individual frames! The 10-day forecast even hints at acceptable temperatures next Sunday, so I hope the girls get to work quickly.

My only photo taken today was of my "burning off" some empty wooden beehive boxes that I needed to put on top of the boxes so as to give enough room for the fondant. Standard procedure to do this anyway so as to kill off any bugs, viruses and unwanted matters such as eggs from the troublesome wax moth. Even more important of course when you know you have a virus about.

Luckily my Blip was saved by son J sending overnight his latest adventure on the USA West Coast. Sadly they are coming to the end of their 16-day tour from Seattle down to San Diego. Today, apart from the odd venture to keep their fluids household topped up with vegan agave juice accompanied by salt - to replace that lost from the scorching sun they had to endure in the cabriolet - and the essential limes for their vitamin needs. By my reckoning, the number of lime quarters they managed meant they hit the recommended seven whole pieces of fruit a day.

J was no doubt pleased to have his travel companion Mathison along who was able to explain all the controls on the USS Midway bridge. Perhaps a bit outdated compared to his modern workplace, Mathison will have learnt at school about some of the earlier means of navigation and seamanship. They both seemed impressed though.

The USS Midway represents quite well much of what had made America great. She was ordered during the darkest 1942 days of WWII and started service one week after WWII ended. While I consider the most successful weapons of war and armed personnel to be those that are never used in anger, she is probably best known for her actions in the Vietnam and Gulf War I operations., the causes of which were not initially started by the US.

Just in case, grandson Elliot gets to ask me anything about it after he has been debriefed by his Uncle when they next meet, I did a bit of reading up on the ship and one story that impressed me. particularly in light of the US midterm elections in two days and the immigration "concerns", was the following:

At the very end of the Vietnam War as the communist lead North Vietnam overran the South, a South Vietnamese Air Force Major, loaded his wife and five children (i.e. 7 people) into a tiny 2-seater Cessna observation plane and simply took off into the South China Sea and with amazing luck after he had reached the point of no return, found the aircraft carrier. The plane was not equipped to land on an aircraft carrier (no hook) and they could not communicate but the Major dropped a written note onto the deck asking for the runway to be cleared for an attempt at landing. Fuel was running out and the Captain ordered $10m worth of Huey helicopters (essential for rescuing people still in Vietnam) to be pushed overboard as there wasn't sufficient time to get them below decks. And the Major landed successfully, the first Vietnamese person to ever do an aircraft carrier landing. And the ship's crew started a fund to help the family settle in the USA.

This is the America that has always been Great.

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